Wellington.Scoop
A woman was hit by a bus in Manners Street this afternoon.

Nothing stopped other buses from getting through. They drove around the injured person and the bus that had hit her.

Then police arrived, with an ambulance.

The DomPost quoted a witness as saying he heard a loud “bang” as the woman struck the front of the bus, spun to its rear and landed head-first on the edge of the pavement.

Twitter photo by Tova O’Brien

The woman was able to talk to police and paramedics before she was taken to hospital in a critical condition. A Wellington Free Ambulance spokesman said later than she was treated in the emergency department and is now in a stable condition.

9 comments:

What are WCC and their traffic planners missing? Can’t they see that their mad scheme endangers pedestrians? Folks didn’t regularly get bowled by buses when Manners Mall was in existence or when buses ran down this narrow thoroughfare one-way only.

Time to call a halt to this mad fiasco of 2-way bus traffic along Manners St.

Maggie – ok, so time to consider the alternatives. Apart from just saying – put it back as it was, what are the alternatives? Are there any? I’m serious – the proposal coming up soon to a bus-stop near you is for much bigger, heavier, faster buses, carrying more people, down a dedicated bus only route, throughout the whole city – and presumably, right down Manners Mall. Is there a possible alternative route?

Igloo, 25. February 2014, 7:01

Someone has made a very expensive, very bad mistake. This is a dangerous, noisy, smelly transport system totally out of place in the cramped inner Wellington CBD. The footpaths are crowded and the roads are nearly empty except for the odd car or bus.

Expect cages to protect the buses from wandering pedestrians.

TrishE, 25. February 2014, 8:32

the WCC and traffic planners are not responsible for someone stepping into traffic.

Elaine Hampton, 25. February 2014, 12:53

TrishE: WCC and the traffic planners are responsible for putting in place an unsafe system. Even the Infratil CEO became a victim. Accidents happen in accident prone places because they are exactly that. This is not the first and will not be the last unless commonsense changes are made. Wellington central is by and large too narrow for these big buses.
One way traffic would be a start, Pedestrian priority would be another.

Kay, 25. February 2014, 19:37

Buses are good but better if roads aren’t so narrow. If Inbound went via Dixon Street and Outbound on Manners Street, they would be able to travel more swiftly and with better safety. Get cars onto other routes instead of using the inner city.

Geoff, 25. February 2014, 20:24

Pedestrians need to stop walking out onto the road without looking. I commute through the CBD everyday and this is a big problem. She walked in front of a bus 15 metres away from a crossing…

Sridhar Ekambaram, 26. February 2014, 7:24

I think everyone has missed a crucial point here. The accident happened because the bus driver had failed to stop at red (Pedestrian signal was green). This accident could have happened anywhere (and do happen), not just in manners mall. So will closing off Manners mall to buses solve the problem? No, it will just shift the problem elsewhere because rather than failing to stop at red here, the driver will fail to stop at red elsewhere. The problem is errant motorists.

And Geoff is right. Pedestrians should also take some responsibility. Just yesterday, there were three / four people crossing the road at willis st in front of Telecom building – one of them reading text message on her phone.None of them were bothered, it was green for motorist and an approaching car was so close it had to slam on its brakes.

Mike, 26. February 2014, 12:29

Sridhar – The DomPost’s item makes no mention of the traffic lights, and the Herald’s quotes the police as saying that there was no indication that the bus had gone through a red light, so it would be interesting to know the source of your information about that.

Whatever, this is about personal responsibility, both driver and pedestrian – there’s a continuous kerb that pedestrians have to step off, and lots of people for drivers to be aware of.

Buses and pedestrians are always going to have to mix in the city, so the risk will always be there – and it is unlikely that it would be reduced by making the road one way, since traffic on one-way streets generally goes faster than on two-way ones, or by barriers, because the greater risk is that people get trapped on the wrong side.

And the current proposal is for fewer buses, so that should reduce the risk. Even better would have been if the Spine Study proposals had recognised that pedestrians and trams co-exist safely all around the world, something that doesn’t apply to the same extent to buses.

[We corrected the date of the Herald report - thanks for pointing out the error.]